Then, as now, a marginal, area of London, where many writers lived or lodged.

In Holywell Street, in the late summer of 1588, the great comic actor Dick Tarleton was dying, cared for by “one Em Ball”, a local woman “of verye bad reputacion”.

Robert Greene was living that year with a woman of the surname Ball, the sister of a thief who had died at Tyburn. She would bear his son, called Fortunatus, who died in 1593 and was buried at St Leonard’s Shoreditch, when his mother was living on the same street. The two Ball women might have been related, or they might have been the same woman. (p. 40)

Other women in the pamphlets of Thomas Nashe include old Megge Curtis of Shoreditch for whom the pages of a pamphlet served “to stop mustard pots with”; and Mother Livers of Newington, a fortune-teller”.

(From A Cup of News: The Life of Thomas Nashe, Charles Nicholl, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984)

Anyone come across “Em” elsewhere?

(That’s 1878, I believe, should you have run out of toes…)

The oldest one listed ic “c. 1250 Gundrada, Daughter of William the Conqueror, Foundress of S. Pancras, Lewes”. But it is in Latin of course, and fragmentary – and if you are wondering about the dating the note says “Gundrada died AD 1085, but Mr Bowtell considers the Coffin to be not earlier than 1250”. (Gundrada is the Latin of Gundred. Wikipedia suggests: “Some scholars question whether Gundred was an illegitimate child of William I or merely a step-daughter, foundling or adopted daughter.”)

Interestingly, lots of the early ones are of women: eg Maud de Mortimer, 1210:

Mahaud de Mortimer gist ici
Jesu pour sa grande pite e misericorde
de sal alme eyt mercy.

One of the earliest English ones is, typically for the Victorians listed as “1393 Sir Thomas Walsch”, but actually says more about his wife:

Here lyes Thomas Walsche Knyght, lorde of Anlep (& dame Kat’ine his wyfe, whiche in her tyme made the Kirke of Anlep and halved the kirkyard first in wurchup of God (& oure Ladye & seynt Nicholas. That God have ther sowles and mercy.

(This is listed as at Wanlep in Leicestershire, which seems to know be spelt Wanlip.)

(And yes, I shouldn’t be allowed on eBay antiquarian books…)

Anne Rochford, whose biography was published in 1728, had, apparently a “virtuous” ealry life, then in later years became a prostitute. She then aquired a coffeehouse – Mrs Rochford’s – that became a site for fashionable rendezvous. Her biographer said she “had something Strong in her Diversions, loved to associate chiefly with Rakes, and affected Masculine Pleasures.”

Later she attracted royal patronage (mmm), and was allowed to open a “polite Cabaret” in the Palace mews.

Clayton, A. London’s Coffee Houses: A Stimulating Story, Historical Publications, 2003, p.100